I've come to the opposite conclusion. Adopted systems in continual use are what is important. I could setup any number of service 'anonymizers' within a day, but if an individual operator can even be short-term trusted, they certainly can't be relied on. Only by getting an overwhelming number of not-heavily-invested node operators can one bootstrap reliable trust.

I want to live in a world where the routine use is anonymous, with nyms only connected voluntarily. Of course people have to be smart enough to not post 'my name is XXX' in-band, but they shouldn't have to go to a distant coffee shop. If privacy takes work, that means it's only accessible to the few willing to put in that work, and will be viewed as an aberration by everyone else. It's only by making it easily accessible to everyone that it can become societally accepted.